Ticketmaster said it would prohibit users and ticket brokers from making multiple accounts, require resellers to use taxpayer ID verification and deploy artificial intelligence tools for “faster evaluation and cancellation of tickets purchased with bots” amid a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit that accuses the platform of scheming with resellers to raise prices.
Key data
In an attempt to “increase the percentage of tickets that go to real fans,” Ticketmaster will limit users and ticket brokers to a single account, which it will enforce through Social Security number or other taxpayer identification verification and AI-powered detection that will terminate scalper accounts, the company said in a letter to Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Ben Ray Luján, DN.M.
The letter, written by Live Nation executive vice president Daniel M. Wall and shared with Forbes by Live Nation, also said Ticketmaster will not allow ticket brokers to exceed the platform’s ticket resale limits, a company policy that the Federal Trade Commission accused of failing to enforce.
Ticketmaster will also shut down TradeDesk, an inventory tool intended to allow resellers to track their ticket sales, after the FTC accused it of being a tool to help ticket spenders scam customers, although Live Nation denied this accusation and said it would shut down the tool to avoid reputational damage.
Live Nation disputed other allegations the FTC made in a lawsuit in September, calling the allegation that Ticketmaster colludes with ticket resellers to raise prices “categorically false,” and noting that it “would not make economic sense” because ticket resales make up just 3% of Live Nation’s revenue.
The company denied the FTC’s allegation that Live Nation and Ticketmaster violate the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, a 2016 law intended to prevent bots from reselling tickets at high prices, saying it has invested more than $1 billion in bot prevention and blocked $8.7 billion worth of bots in April 2025 alone.
Forbes has contacted Ticketmaster and Live Nation for comment.
Lawsuit accuses Ticketmaster of deceiving customers and artists
The FTC and seven states sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster in a lawsuit last month, accusing the ticketing companies of misleading customers and artists by allowing consumers to buy tickets in bulk and resell them at high prices. The FTC said this allows Live Nation and Ticketmaster to “triple the drop” in ticket sales fees by first collecting a fee from the initial sale, then collecting fees from resellers when they sell tickets and from consumers who purchase resale tickets.
The FTC complaint cited an email from a Ticketmaster executive who stated that the companies “turn a blind eye as a matter of policy” to resellers who exceed the platform’s limits on the number of tickets they buy and resell. The companies allegedly said in 2021 that they would not use third-party verification to stop ticket resellers because the measure was “too effective,” the FTC lawsuit states.
The lawsuit says Ticketmaster and Live Nation collected $16.4 billion in fees between 2019 and 2024, with $3.7 billion coming from fees on resale tickets alone. Weeks after the lawsuit was filed, Blackburn and Luján sent a letter to Live Nation demanding a response to the FTC’s allegations.
Key background
Ticketmaster’s high resale prices have frustrated consumers and lawmakers. Scrutiny over the ticketing platform’s practices has grown after several high-profile ticketing catastrophes, such as Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour ticket sale in 2022, which crashed the platform’s servers and left many fans without tickets or facing astronomical prices.
The Justice Department sued to break up Live Nation last year after an investigation into whether it has a monopoly in the ticketing industry. Ticketmaster is also under investigation in the UK for its controversial practice of “dynamic pricing,” which sees ticket prices increase in response to high demand.
This article was originally published on Forbes US
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